


The Rules of Migratory Federal Agents

by dashakay



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 15:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6085338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashakay/pseuds/dashakay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If she stops to think, and it’s hard not to stop and think when it’s past midnight in a drafty motel room, she knows that she’s now truly alone in this world. Mulder’s room is just down the hall, but he might as well be a million miles away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rules of Migratory Federal Agents

**Author's Note:**

> Post-ep for Home Again.
> 
> Thanks to aloysiavirgata, avocadoave, contradiction-to-nature, icedteainthebag, leiascully, perplexistan and scienceandmysticism for constant and boundless support. Also, I’m really not a shill for Sanofi-Aventis, makers of Ambien (zolpidem tartrate).

It’s only after the heavy motel room door closes behind her with a definitive _thunk_ that she feels alone, truly and utterly alone.

In those years of semi-comfortable domesticity and cohabitation, and the later ones of living alone but not lonely in a bustling city, she forgot all about those solitary nights in motel and hotel rooms, just herself and a temporary and far too quiet room.

A late spring snowfall is swirling outside her window, blanketing the plains of Kansas. She closes the drapes and turns up the heat, which makes the room smell like cooked dust. Rummaging through her suitcase, she realizes she forgot her warm bathrobe, her slippers, and the book she was reading. She’s having to re-learn how to pack for these trips. It used to be second nature for her. Back then, she could, and did, pack for work trips in her sleep.

There are rules of living as a migratory federal agent and over the last few months, she’s been slowly recalling them: Always pack shampoo and conditioner, because the cheap complimentary stuff will strip the artificial red from your hair. Don’t count on a hotel having an iron, so only bring clothes that won’t wrinkle. Never, _ever_ , forget your bottle of Ambien because your aging body has forgotten how to sleep in uncomfortable rented beds.

She forgot the bottle of Ambien, too. She’s still learning.

In the old days, she’d fill some of her time alone in a motel room by calling her mother. It was always comforting to hear Maggie natter on about the latest parish gossip, the latest adorable things Bill’s kids did, her new recipe for chicken divan. She’d lie on the latest bed with her eyes closed, nine states away, and lose herself in her mother’s uncomplicated life. Now she doesn’t even have that.

Her mother’s phone number is still stored in her cell phone’s contacts. She wonders if she’ll ever be able to erase it.

If she stops to think, and it’s hard not to stop and think when it’s past midnight in a drafty motel room, she knows that she’s now truly alone in this world. Mulder’s room is just down the hall, but he might as well be a million miles away.

She tosses and turns between the scratchy, vaguely bleachy-smelling sheets. Her feet are cold but she doesn’t want to get out of bed and look for a pair of clean socks. She already knows better than to turn the television on. There are only four channels, two of them seemingly devoted to high school basketball twenty-four hours a day. With a sigh, she stares at the cracks and water stains on the ceiling, longing for her memory foam mattress, her Pratesi sheets, her white noise machine, and prescription sleep aids.

After ten minutes, she sits up and grabs her phone with a sharp sigh. Surely, Mulder is still awake. “Do you still take Ambien?” she texts.

It only takes about five seconds for him to text back. “Of course. Better living through modern chemistry.”

“Can I borrow one?”

Three seconds this time. “I’ll be right over.”

It’s less than a minute before she hears his knock on the door. She opens it and smiles to see him in a wrinkled black tee shirt and jeans, his hair half slicked-down and half standing straight up. Rumpled Mulder, an old favorite of hers.

He holds out his hand as if offering a precious gift, a small white pill resting on his palm. “Welcome to the modern world, Scully. Midnight deliveries of zolpidem tartrate, guaranteed to bring sleep, and perhaps a little driving or binge eating in one’s slumber.”

She finds herself smiling. “You can have the car keys, Mulder.”

“What if I’m the one who ends up driving in my Ambien sleep?”

“Then I guess we go on a really interesting road trip. Maybe _this_ is how we’ll figure out who murdered the farmers.”

Mulder leans against the doorjamb. “Do you realize that sharing prescription medication is against the law?”

“Are you going to arrest me?”

It feels comfortably like old times, the truly old times, before shootings and cancer and pregnancy and a baby with downy blond hair.  She feels a few tears filling her eyes.

He touches her shoulder. “You okay, Scully?”

She lifts her chin and nods. “I just couldn’t sleep. Still getting used to traveling again.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. It’s going to take a while.”

Opening the door a little wider, she says, “Want to come in for a minute?”

Mulder grimaces. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I don’t want to get used to…” His voice trails off.

A flash of sense memory, of just six days before, when he held her in her bed as she finally cried after her mother’s funeral, makes her knees almost buckle. Oh, she remembers how he smelled, the rough grain of his cheek against hers, how utterly safe she felt with his strong arms around her. How it felt so easy to let herself be loved again, to allow him to touch her and kiss her as if nothing bad had ever happened between them.

“Yeah,” she says, grimacing. “You’re right.”

He kisses her on the cheek. He smells like Irish Spring and toothpaste. She wants to grab him by the back of the neck and forcibly drag him off to the sagging bed behind her but she knows she can’t. Last week was an aberration, the aftermath of her grief. Making love with him again would be making a promise to him she’s not sure she could keep.

“Good night, Scully.”

“Night, Mulder. Thanks for the drugs.”

“Any time,” he says and starts down the hallway.

She shuts the door, locks it, and leans against the chilly wood. She needs a moment to catch her breath. Her brain may be over him but her body will never forget.

She swallows the pill and climbs back into bed. Sternly, she orders herself not to think about him. It’s no use. What’s done is done. He’s her partner, he’s probably still her best friend. She’s lucky to have that.

After a few minutes her eyelids feel heavy and her breathing slows, the drug seeping into her bloodstream. I’ll get this right, she thinks as sleep takes her over. I’ll figure out the rules eventually.


End file.
